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Magento

DX3 V AWS CASE STUDY

We have previously explored the advantages of using a dedicated Magento host like Dx3webs v above Amazon Web services.  However, it is always best to back this up with real world case studies.  We regularly transfer sites from AWS to our infrastructure so we decided to take a few measurements before and after. In this case in particular as the existing hosting environment was so extreme.

AWS configuration.

The current configuration is

C3.4xlarge :

16 cores of  Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2 (Ivy Bridge) Processor,

30GB RAM,

2 x 160 SSD

1 RDS (for database)

Db.m3.medium :

1 VCU

3.75GB RAM

Double this for staging.

Total monthly bill approx $1600 !

To put this into context this would comfortably purchase a MONSTER Dx6 magento managed  server from Dx3webs giving Four Intel Xeon E5-4620 Processors for a total of 64 processing cores and 128GB RAM with 4x480GB SSD drives and a 1GB network connection…. With enough spare change for a decent company car.

However, we have no interest in selling customers hosting they do not need. We are in this for the long haul and want to grow organically with our customers.  As such using our Magento Hosting selector it was determined that a DxV3 (8 Cores / 4GB RAM) would be suitable given the traffic / orders / products that were in the store.. Total cost per month : £159.99

Of course this is no good if the replacement server is not at least as fast as the AWS offering.. Of course we are not really interested in being at least as fast as anything.

We tested the AWS site against our DxV3 VPS using Mage speed test. This works by firing controlled concurrent requests against the sitemap of the domain.  Random URLs are selected and called at different traffic levels. We tested with 20, 30, 40 and 50 concurrent users.

As you can see.. At every level of traffic the Dx3 VPS is faster.

If you are thinking that 15 transactions per second is not great.. You would be right. However, what we are interested in here is a like for like test.  A DxV3 will happily reach 35 transactions per second in ideal circumstances.  We will now work with the new client’s development team to iron out the bottlenecks that are holding the site back.

We know that AWS can be configured to run really quick magento installations eg The Angry Bird site ran on Magento powered by AWS to great success. However, the problem here is the cost.  AWS is frightfully expensive, requires multiple web frontends to be able to compete with the raw power of a single dedicated server. AWS can have very varied network response times especially if you have a split between your database and web servers.  It also requires a significant technical skills in the initial setup period.. And you may have to keep those skills on retainer… just in case.

Are you running on AWS? Take a test drive with Dx3webs..

We could literally save you thousands per month.